Transport Committee on April 29th, 2010

[John McKenna]

I'm saying that right now they largely don't use the main terminal, because they go on chartered flights through the FBOs, and so on. There's talk about requiring them to go through the terminals rather than through the system of the FBOs, and that's what we stand against, because you don't need to attract more attention and more reasons for a threat. I'm sure that in Washington you'd see a a lot of people who would have liked to blow up the Canadiens' plane, and that would have been a lot easier had they gone through the main terminal.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Jones, my son was recently airlifted to Sick Children's Hospital, and I put my faith and guidance into those wonderful people at the orange helicopter emergency unit. You guys are our flying angels, for sure.

It seems that the risks of flying helicopters are much higher and the crashes much more sensational, so I wonder if you could elaborate on this guideline, these best practices, and say how far this has been developed.

[Fred Jones]

The initiative of developing best practices inside the helicopter association has been going on for about two and a half years. We have two or three best practices that are final now and available to our members, and there are about four or five that are under development. Our members have developed the best practices by consensus, so they reflect what a prudent and reasonable operator is doing out there today. They fill a regulatory void or exceed the regulatory standards, largely. They at least meet the regulatory standard, but they're also designed to fill the void and to exceed the standard.

The acid test for how successful those best practices will be is the willingness of Transport Canada to collaborate with the industry when they're developing and considering new regulatory initiatives. As we move to a different type of inspector and as we move to SMS, under which industry accepts more responsibility, we also expect to have more influence over the standards that govern our conduct. If we act responsibly and are developing new rules that reflect what a reasonable operator is doing out there, doesn't it make perfect sense for those standards to find their way into regulation that will govern our conduct?

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

It does. And what's the record of Transport Canada?

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Jones, Madame Crombie, I have to go back to the government side.

I believe the next five minutes are being shared by Mr. Mayes and Ms. Brown.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Our focus at our airports seems to be on objects that can be of safety concern, and we try to screen those things out. But do you see that passenger identification and behavioural analysis at airports would be a way to streamline the system so that we can move people through more quickly at airports?

There is a resistance, of course, to passenger identification because of some of the concerns regarding privacy and also some of the challenges with discrimination. Could I just ask you to give your opinion on whether that might be a better route to follow than just trying to identify the objects that could cause safety concerns?

[Michael Skrobica]

I appreciate what the background of your question is. We don't think that behavioural analysis will play a significant role. There is potentially a place for identification of clear signs to note, and there is a trial program under way today in Canada. We believe more strongly, though, in the technological solutions. Given our passenger volumes, we think that's the better route, the more efficient route to follow.

The testimony that John McKenna indicated was that what we should do is move away from using very old technology and move to the newer, more efficient model.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I'm just going to pick up from that, if I may. I raised this the other day with some of our other witnesses. We are always in this destructive situation wherein old technologies are bygone very quickly because of the destructive minds that are out there.

Mr. McKenna, in your report you asked why we can't use a modern detection technology that will reduce the number of stages and the time and personnel required to process passengers. So you're not thinking that the behavioural identification is going to be part of this. In your comment on the full-body scanners you say they're an improvement, but they're not the most efficient.

Where are we going to go among these modern technologies? What else are you looking at?

[Michael Skrobica]

There are a number of screening models that combine various systems. One of them utilizes a full-body scan but also does a trace. A passenger pushes a bar, and it detects that, and thre's a vapour down at shoe level to determine whether there are any explosives carried in their shoes, as in the case of the shoe bomber Richard Reid.

We believe that type of technology, with some improvements, is probably what we're looking at, going into the future.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

There was an article in Maclean's some time ago that said that they didn't think that particular machine was particularly effective. They said:

“We’re always looking at new procedures to ensure security”.... Last spring, the agency ran a six-week pilot test of bomb-sniffing machines at Pearson similar to the ones used in other high-profile buildings. They puff air as a person walks through the archway and then analyze the particles for explosive matter. The machines were rejected, says Larocque, because “the maintenance and reliability of the units were not good.”

Is this a debate that's going on in airport security? Are we using the body screener right now because it's the most reliable?

[Michael Skrobica]

The full-body scanner, do you mean?

Yes, it's generally a more reliable machine. But as with any kind of technology, you're going to have the bleeding edge of technology at which new developments are going to have their problems, and we need to work through them.

I would point out only that the type of machine that was given trials in Kelowna is indicative of where we're probably going to head in the future. It essentially combines three systems to screen passengers. The big letdown there is throughput. You'd have to buy a lot more machines and open up more lines.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you. I will now give the floor to Mr. Dufour and Mr. Gaudet who will be sharing the five minutes. It is up to you.

Mr. Gaudet, you have the floor.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Nourse, earlier you talked about safety and security in the transportation of materiel and passengers. What would be the best solution, according to you, to have perfect security? You said that when you went to the Far North you had to transport both at the same time. So what would be the best way of going about things in your opinion?

[Stephen Nourse]

I don't think the northern situation is transferable to the south. We have a very good record, shall we say, in the Arctic, but it's primarily because the market is so small. A lot of it is due to everybody knowing everybody. I refer to the aircraft up there quite often as the local bus. A flight attendant who sees a stranger on the plane will strike up a conversation to find out who they are and what they're doing. It takes the security to a quite different level in that regard. It's a very closed.... It's like the non-passenger screening that was being referred to.

The silly situation is that in the smaller airports such as Yellowknife you get the same people screening the same non-passengers 18 times a day. What's the point of doing this? To me, that is a waste of resources, and I think you'll find it in most small airports across the country. Once you move away from the tier ones, people are just being cycled through time and time again, and then they go and have coffee together and it's, “Oh, now I have to screen you again.”

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I hope that Transport Canada will listen carefully.

Mr. Prud'Homme, earlier you talked about the SMS and you mentioned that you had asked the government for subsidies. Could you explain this again?

[Marco Prud'Homme]

In fact we did not ask for subsidies but for a financial partnership in order to set up some training. We had selected a consulting company in the Quebec region to create a training course. Unfortunately, this is very costly. And so we turned to the Montreal office to see if there were resources for that. I must say that in the beginning, people were enthusiastic about supporting us but ultimately our request was turned down. Unfortunately, there were no resources.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chairman that is all.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Mr. Gaudet.

Mr. Bevington now has the floor.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I just want to take a minute to talk about Bill C-7, since it was brought up by a number of people here. Certainly the results of the last two years I think speak highly of the work we did on Bill C-7.

We've seen that the CBAA has been taken back by the government. That was one of the concerns we had with Bill C-7. As well, we now have an agreement that we should postpone the implementation of SMS for the small carriers. That was another big concern we had with it.

Our other concerns were tied to things like you say in here about operators' confidential safety information. We didn't like that, because incident reports under Bill C-7 would have been confidential, so that information on things that happened, say, with the diversion of an Air Canada flight down to Grand Forks, would have been confidential to many people.

As well, the liability of the chief executives of the companies was another issue that certainly was one of the reasons there was opposition to Bill C-7.

I just wanted to get those points on the record.

But as I say, the government should be quite happy with what we've done on Bill C-7, because of course now they've changed their policies in some respects in terms of some of the things that might have happened differently, had we not stood up on those issues.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

So, Mr. Bevington, and all the witnesses, I guess because you heard Mr. Watson give his rendition—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Are you cutting into my time, or—

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

No, but he gave a particular rendition, and now we have another member giving theirs. But I know all of you are taking from this that Parliament actually works. So when any members around here use the word “we”, they really mean “we”, as in members of Parliament expressing the collective will of the House in making such decisions.

Please carry on, Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Well, I certainly want to ensure as well that the standing committee sees the results of this Transport Canada study.

Mr. McKenna, you brought up the security charges. You did a study on security charges, yet when we asked Transport Canada that question a couple of meetings ago, they said they had no information on the relative costs of security between the countries. Did you share that study with Transport Canada?

[Michael Skrobica]

Yes, we shared it with Transport Canada and it went into the minister's hands.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Well, that's certainly different from the evidence presented by Transport Canada at one of our meetings.

Mr. Chair, we'll have to have them back here to explain what happened to that information in the department.

I want to touch base on SMS a little more. When we consider the small carriers again, what kind of timeframe will be appropriate for you to come up with a direction for your companies? How close are you to developing this guide, and when would it go forward to Transport Canada for their input?